10-Day Lewa, Mathews Range & Maasai Mara Safari

The long flight ends at Jomo Kenyatta International, where a private transfer is waiting. The drive continues to a quiet boutique property set among indigenous trees, where birdsong replaces the traffic almost as soon as the gate closes.

The rest of the day is unhurried: time to shower, rest and adjust to the altitude before the flight north to Lewa in the morning.

A light aircraft flies north over the green central highlands to Nanyuki, a small town that sits right on the equator at the foot of Mount Kenya. From there the road continues to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, one of the most successful rhino sanctuaries in Africa, with the mountain's jagged, snow streaked peaks on the skyline to the south whenever the cloud clears.

Lunch is taken on arrival, and a first game drive follows in the afternoon, across open plains and acacia country where rhino, elephant and reticulated giraffe are all easily found.

Lewa is one of the best places in Kenya to see rhino, black and white alike, and a full day of drives, morning and afternoon, gives time to spend with them properly. The conservancy also holds one of the largest populations of Grevy's zebra left anywhere, alongside reticulated giraffe, elephant, lion and cheetah.

What makes Lewa different is the story behind it: a former cattle ranch turned into a working model of conservation, where the neighbouring communities share in the benefit and help protect the wildlife. The guides here tell that story well, and it adds real depth to the day.

The flight north crosses Samburu land, dry and red and empty, to Namunyak, a forested oasis at the foot of the Mathews Range that can only be reached by air. From above, the plains give way abruptly to green mountains rising out of the lowlands like an island.

Lunch is taken on arrival, and an afternoon game drive follows, in country that very few safari travellers ever see.

The Mathews Range makes for a very different kind of safari, among forested mountains, dry sand rivers and rocky hills. Morning and afternoon drives are joined by activities that go beyond the standard game drive, arranged directly through the camp.

This is Samburu country, and the region is known for its singing wells, where young warriors sing to their cattle as they draw water by hand during the dry season. The wildlife is wilder here too, elephant, leopard and wild dog among it, and far less used to vehicles, which makes every sighting feel earned.

A second full day in one of Kenya's least visited wilderness areas, where the absence of other people becomes part of the experience. The drives run in the morning and afternoon, and the heat of the day is spent at camp, looking out over the valley.

After dark, far from any town, the sky over the Mathews Range is thick with stars, a fitting end to the last evening in the north.

The flight south crosses the Great Rift Valley from the dry north to the Maasai Mara, and the change could hardly be greater: red rock and forest give way to rolling grassland that seems to run on forever, dotted with herds.

The first game drive follows that afternoon, onto plains that hold some of the highest numbers of lion, cheetah and leopard in Africa.

With a packed lunch on board, the first of two full days is spent out on the plains from morning to afternoon, shaped around whatever the Mara offers. That might be a pride of lions with cubs, a cheetah stalking gazelle across the open grass, or, in the migration months, the great herds gathering at the Mara River.

Because the vehicle does not need to return to camp at midday, it can stay wherever the action is for as long as it lasts.

By the second day, the Mara has taken on a shape: the prides and their territories, the rivers, the places the herds like to gather. The guide uses all of it to make the most of the last full day of the safari, returning to the best of the earlier sightings or setting out to find something new.

The evening in camp is a fitting close to a safari that has crossed some of Kenya's most varied country, from the rhino sanctuaries of Lewa to the mountains of the north and the plains of the Mara.

A last game drive at first light precedes the flight back to Nairobi. After a private lunch, the afternoon goes to two of the city's best known sights: the Karen Blixen Museum, the farmhouse at the foot of the Ngong Hills where the author of Out of Africa lived, and the Giraffe Centre, where the endangered Rothschild's giraffe come to the raised platform to be fed. The transfer to the airport follows, in time for the departure flight.